Fearless
by Cat-Teen
Summary: Third in Triquetra Series - Rating may go up The Scarecrow attacks Tri-Q HQ with fear gases for each member, and it's up to the Titans and Speedy to save them before they destroy each other.
1. At least she's not mad

1.

Triquetra Headquarters, Gotham City... 

A dark figure crept around the sides of the building, silhouetted against the full moon that shone through into the common room where the three members of the Triquetra were sprawled on separate sofas, casually watching television. Teleka sat bolt upright, her eyes wide with fear. "What was that? Mother of Gotham, what was that!" she cried out.

"The news, mate..." Blue Moon replied hesitantly, looking at her sideways. "You're getting skittish in your old age," she scoffed, trading glances with Venom, who hadn't seen fit to move, as of yet.

"No! Big, tall, lanky, shadow thing... outside!" she continued, fearfully pointing at the offending window.

"Or you could be going mad..." Blue faltered, giggling.

"No! I'm serious! There was something at the window!"

"Teleka, relax. It was just a cat or something," Venom sighed, unfazed as always.

The Dark Figure shot a rope to the rooftop and clambered up with a quiet wicked cackle. "Shhh!" he scolded himself madly. "Nasty children will hear you!" he chuckled to himself. "Shhh!" He launched into quiet song as he reached the roof and pulled three, baseball-sized spheres from a pouch attached to his belt. "Hush little baby, don't say a word, Mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird... These mockingbirds won't be singing for a while now..." he giggled, sounding silly even to himself, as he dropped the balls through into the air conditioning through the vent on the roof. "Time to have some fun!" he cried gleefully with a high-pitched cackle as they smashed at the bottom and the dense gas dropped through the vents into the building.

Teleka was the first to feel it. A wooziness that settled over her and a pressure inside her skull. "I told you it wasn't a cat, Venom," she drawled as she blacked out.

"Huh?" he asked even as he was affected too.

Blue Moon looked at her two fallen teammates. "At least Telly's not mad..." she reasoned as she too fainted...

The next morning, sunlight had replaced the beams of the moon, illuminating the three teenagers who were just beginning to regain consciousness. Venom was the first, but the second he opened his eyes, he jerked upright, his breath caught in his throat. He leapt over the back of the couch and ran out of the room in the direction of his triangular third of Headquarters. Teleka blinked slight, rubbing away the unconsciousness before she began to look around her, her eyes focusing on every obstacle like a cat, before she began to leap between the tables and chairs in her own direction. Blue Moon, as soon as she woke and saw the redhead bounding away like demented kangaroo, screamed loudly, coiling up on the couch for ten long minutes before she found the strength in her legs to bolt away.

So what were the reasons behind this strange behaviour? Only the Triquetra can explain...

Venom 

"Unreal... Unreal... This is so unreal, that wasn't the girls. There's no way that was the girls. This is insane. Just a nightmare probably. I couldn't have done that, I _wouldn't _have." I know I'm talking to myself, but I really don't care. Anything to get that image out of my head. That scene...

"Okay, okay, straighten things out. Just go back to the living room and check. Stay calm. You're the calm one, remember? You've always been the calm one. You can do this." I can barely hear the words coming out of my own mouth as I slowly tread back to the common room. They're still lying there when I look around the edge of the doorframe. I have to fight the urge to throw up on the spot and force myself to keep walking. Teleka's the closest to me so I stop there.

She's lying right in the beam of the sun, that shocked scream frozen on her face. She looks so scared... I lift her wrist to check, feeling for a pulse, even the faintest one, but there's nothing. Only the gaping mouth and the green veins that look as though they're about to pop out of her skin. My work. I've seen it, but I've never killed anyone. Suddenly it's unreal again. It's a strange fearful place and I could swear Teleka turned.

She glaring at me, those glazed, fearful eyes are boring right into me. And then I'm sure. She is moving. Her arm rises, pointing to the other couch. "You took Blue first!" she screams at me. "See what you've done to us!" she cries. I feel her moving me with her powers and try to close my eyes. I don't want to see what I've done to Blue Moon. "She was the first!" Teleka keeps screaming, forcing my eyes to open. "You were bored when you got to me! Why? Why!" Finally she forces me to look at Blue. The frozen scream across her features is possibly even worse, wrenching her pretty face into mad disarray. Teleka moves me, still screaming, forcing me to look further down, at the huge chunks missing from her torso, and the purplish stains the crimson of her blood has made across her blue veils. Her eyes have rolled back horrifically inside her head. But even as I look at her they come back, the same, glassy gaze Telly subjected me to.

Her mouth doesn't move from its horrific pose when the scream starts. Not even a scream, but a banshee screech, a mournful blood-curdling wailing. I can feel tears in my eyes, but I still refuse to believe it. I blink, and suddenly there's no telekinesis holding me to the spot, no mangled Blue in front of me and no more of Teleka's enraged screams. They're gone. I run out of the room and stop with my back to the door. I close my eyes again and breathe deeply, calming myself. There are a hundred reasonable explanations for this. None of them involve Telly and Blue dying. Most of them involve me going mad, or being driven mad. I open my eyes again and start to walk off down the hallway. No real reason, I'm just trying to put some distance between myself and the common room. Just in case...

Teleka 

"Not here... Not now... This is impossible. I was sitting in front of the TV worrying about shadows a moment ago. Or... when was that?" I murmur to myself.

"Quiet child. Don't be caught unawares..." That voice... in my ear... when did I put an earpiece in? Is that... Oh Gotham! Catwoman! I knew I recognised the uniform I'm wearing, the way my sight is tinted green through my goggles. I'm Cat-Girl again... Impossible. How could that have happened? Jesus, I'm going nuts.

"This is all wrong," I say urgently, tears welling in my eyes in confusion.

"This is exactly as it was planned. Don't be silly girl! Focus! What on Earth is wrong with you?"

"No!" I shout frantically. I reach up to tear the earpiece away and watch it skitter across the floor. It does nothing to stop it. If anything her voice becomes louder, filling the entire room.

"Stupid child! Now look what you've done!" Guards... hundreds of them, coming at me from every direction. I run back the way I came, as there seem to be fewer that way. I barrel through them, pushing and shoving, Selina shouting after me all the way, her voice following me. I can tell this is still HQ. I can't have moved. Could I? I come the doorway I know should lead into the living room, but I watch as I totter on the edge of the floor, hanging out of a floor-to-ceiling window. I twist in the air as I fall and grab the edge. Do I pull myself up, and face hundreds of armed guards? Or do I let go and pray there's an old mattress in the dumpster below me? Decision, decisions, huh?

"May God give me wings," I mutter. My fingers snap out straight and I fall. I can time it. I should've hit the ground by now, but I haven't. Something lashes out from another window and pulls me up. It's her. Catwoman, her whip around my wrists with my hands holding on to it for dear life. "Wings... wings..." I murmur over and over again.

"Failure..." she hisses at me, the slashes open across my face before I even see her hand move. I squeeze my eyes shut as tightly as I can, feeling the blood run down my face. How could I fail someone I no longer work for? I keep telling myself that over and over again. This isn't real. I open my eyes, hoping I'll be facing the truth when I do. And it worked. I'm standing in the common room in the shaft of sunlight from the window.

I tilt my head back, looking up towards the ceiling. "Thank you! I knew you were up there today!"

"Wings!" A high-pitched screech. Just that one word, 'Wings.' Two huge bird's wings swing out of the shadows and wrap around me. Suddenly I can't breathe. It's pitch black. There's nothing... I gasp for air, but there is no oxygen to draw into my lungs. I feel myself black out momentarily and come to seconds later on the ground. I stand up and run down into my third. Just getting away from the common room.

Blue Moon 

Alright... when I fell asleep, Telly and Ven were here. They were, I remember it! I'm not nuts, I was not alone and I was not here! This place is scary, and I was in HQ. The only thing that should be scary now is what Teleka looks like in the mornings. Yeah. This is all wrong, and very different. I'm fully aware that I'm frozen in place where I woke on the couch. Couch? Tree trunk. No! It's a couch; something's making me think it's a tree trunk... Or maybe something's making me think that something's making me think that the couch is a tree trunk, and really it _is_ a tree trunk. Or maybe I'm confused. Yeah, it's the last one.

Oh God, this is weird. It's some kind of swamp type place. It's scary. I'm in it. That's all I know... "Who's there?" I hear my cry before I even realize I've seen something. Something human-sized, but hunched like a cat, bouncing among the roots and branches. No! The chairs and tables! No! Roots and Branches!

There are bubbles in the water of this swamp. No bubbles in carpet. I must be in the swamp... There are bubbles and there are ripples. Ripples spreading out to me, now waves, splashing all over me, brown mud, holding me down. Something breaking the surface. Black and hairy... a long, jointed leg pulls out of the mud... slowly... reaches over to me, pins me down, and another... pinning me back further. More and more legs, and now the body. The head, pincers where the mouth should be, and what look like hundreds of eyes.

A spider... a giant, black, hairy, muddy spider, leaning in towards me, those pincers clicking, legs twitching. Too much for me to take! I pull myself free of the legs, feeling my veils rip as I bolt out of the room. Now I recognise my surroundings. Triquetra HQ! The hall up towards my third! I'm saved!

I feel something stop. A scream... Have I really been screaming all this time? The barbed wire in my throat says 'Hell yeah, you stupid cow!', so I head for the kitchen. Water. A glass of water. Whenever I wake up from a nightmare, which is probably all that was, I have a glass of water and I feel better. It must've just been a nightmare. That's a reasonable explanation. Good God, I sound like V. Is that a sign of madness? Have I lived with those two nutters too long? Or is that the other way about...

"Stop thinking!" I tell myself out loud. "All you do is confuse yourself!"

I clear my mind completely, managing to clam myself a little as I reach the kitchen. I focus on it like some kind of prize, distracting me from everything. I almost manage to forget. I grab a glass and reach out to the tap, or the faucet or whatever you call it outside of East London, but as soon as I turn it I try to turn it off. Not water. More spiders, tiny ones, millions of them, streaming into the tumbler. But the flow doesn't stop when I twist the tap off. They keep coming, flooding the sink, out into the kitchen. I throw the glass away, barely acknowledging the crash as it blasts into the wall. I sprint from the room and pull the door behind me. I pull one of the veils off and use it to block the bottom of the door before I run off down the hall, away from the kitchen. Far, far away from that bloody kitchen!

Speedy 

I wonder what's going on. Normally the Triquetra would have been out already today... Even weirder, their security's off. The door's slightly ajar, so I push it open and walk in. There's a thick gas hanging in the air, so I cover my mouth and nose, trying not to breath any of it in. "Telly? Ven? Blue? Are you guys here?" I walk into the common room and immediately know something's seriously up. Tables and chairs overturned and ripped. It looks like Teleka's claws have been at work. Were they attack. Ripped pieces of Blue Moon's veils are draped over one of the sofas like dead blue leaves and there are spatters of Venom's poison all over the place.

I start off following Teleka's trail, heading up towards her third. It seems to go half way up the hallway, then return to the common room and head back again. Whatever happened, she was running as fast as she can. Faster than I've ever seen her. If I didn't know better I'd say she fell at least ten times where her claws have dragged the floor.

"Who's there!?" The voice is more of a feral roar; something following me around the corridor, but it's moving too fast, always one step ahead of me.

"It's Speedy. Who's that?"

"Ssssspeedy..." hisses the voice, lowering to something I can recognise and trace to a shadow hanging in one of the alcoves in the ceiling.

"Teleka?" She sounds out of her mind, and when the shadow drops to the floor, that's how she looks. She has the look of a predator in her eyes. Eyes that track my every movement like I'm her prey. "Telly, talk to me, what happened?"

She imitated me perfectly, breathing heavily. She looked almost like she was about to be sick, wrenching back and forward. "What is it? What's the matter? Teleka, you're scaring me, just tell me what happened!" I grab her by both shoulders, forcing her to face me, trying to get her snap out of it. Again she mimicked my words flawlessly.

For a second, something changed and she softened. "Scarecrow!" she screamed wildly, before the mad look returned to her. "You never loved me!" she exclaimed, her voice becoming that insane roar again. "You said you loved me!"

"What? Telly, I do." She pounces like a wildcat, pinning me down with her claws and powers combined.

"No! That's what you say, but you don't, do you? I'm right, aren't I? How could you? How could anyone? Noone ever has! I don't care!" I'm convinced now that she's gone totally crazy. I don't mean to sound harsh, but truth is truth. It's like it's not even Teleka. It's some Arkham outpatient in her body.

"Teleka, I don't want to hurt you..."

"You lied to me! You already have! That HURT!" she screams. That's when I know I have to get out of there. If anything she's getting more violent. If I stay here, I'll probably end up dead. I throw her off, watching as she crashes into the wall and sprint for the door. I can hear her screaming after me, but as soon as that hard door's at my back, she stops screaming.

It takes me a second to relax. I've only ever heard rumours about when Teleka went crazy, but nothing like that. This is something entirely new. And what was it she'd said, in that second when it faded and it was just Teleka? Scarecrow. Suddenly I know what she meant by that, and I know who I have to call. I'll tell Robin, and the Titans can help me sort this out. If Blue Moon and Venom are as crazy as that, I'm not going in there alone again.

A full hour later, and I'm standing outside Titans Tower. Goddamn communicators... The range is crap, and there was no point walking to the outskirts of Jump City just to put a call in. I just hope they're in. God knows what's happening at HQ. If Teleka's anything to go by, Venom and Blue Moon are probably the same. Actually, Blue Moon's probably the worst of all of them. She was already nuts.

I know what they say about superheroes never answering the doorbell, but this is getting ridiculous. I pull out the communicator anyway and see that, yes, they are in, all in the living room on the top floor. "Hey! I've been at your door for ten minutes! This is important!"

"Like, ultra-important? 'Cause it's the weekend dude," Beast Boy informs me. As if I need reminded. This isn't exactly my idea of fun either.

"I'm fully aware of what day it is. Our friends are in serious trouble!" As soon as I say that, the doors swing open by some kind of mechanism and I march upstairs to them.

"Is there something up with the Triquetra?" Robin asks sincerely.

"No, I'm talking about the Hive! Of course the Triquetra! I just stopped by HQ and... well it was... weird, to say the least." So I have to explain all about the security and the gas and the strange behaviour, but as soon as I finish, they all start talking over my head, trying to figure it out. "You're not listening to me! Teleka knew! She said it was the Scarecrow!"

"Ah..." they say in unison, slowly. All I can manage is to roll my eyes. "So will you help me or not?"

"Of course, man. Let's go," Cyborg says willingly, but Robin stops him cautiously.

"That gas is probably centralized to affect only the Triquetra, but I think we should still be careful."

"What do you suggest, Robin?" Starfire says, ever-so-cheerful as always. No offence to her, but the girl sickens me. She's been on Earth for years now; you'd think she'd have picked up something about the language.

"The breathers we use for underwater missions should be able to filter it out," Raven supplies more helpfully than usual.

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go," Terra says, already half way out the door.

Thanks to the T-car, it's only half an hour this time until we're standing in front of Triquetra HQ. Of course, Robin takes command as always. I don't bother arguing with him for once. Truth is, I'm still worried about Teleka. Beast Boy is sent into the air vents to investigate the source of the gas. The rest of us are to split up and find Venom, Blue and Telly and hit them with tranquillisers Cyborg's supplied. I feel kind of bad about knocking Telly out like some kind of animal, but it has to be done. Robin, who has experience with the Scarecrow, says sometimes there's no other cure than time and sleep. And as we suspect the Triquetra were knocked out all night, they've inhaled enough to be fully in the thrall of the gas.

Raven and I are sent after Teleka, Cyborg and Terra are on Venom and Robin and Starfire are searching out Blue Moon. Promises to be an interesting day, if nothing else.


	2. Family, Spiders and Hurting my Love

2.

Teleka 

Other people... There are other people in this place. I can hear them. My senses are still sharp from training under Catwoman... I need a weapon, something to use as a weapon. There was only me in this place... then he came... Speedy, but I got rid of him... And now there are more people. Six, I think, from the footsteps....

"Wait!" I cry suddenly, hardly even realizing. "Something's wrong here." For a second, my vision skews and warps, and I could swear I can see Headquarters, but then I'm back here. This place I don't recognise, with people coming after me. I still need a weapon. A bar... there's a bar lying in the corner, so I drop from the ceiling and lift it, before I jump back up and brace myself in the alcoves again.

"Wrong! No!" Not a bar... Venom's baseball bat... No, it's a bar, a metal bar. I need to find somewhere to think about this. I drop down and pad down the hallway, but all the doors are locked; all except one, so I slide into the room and close the door noiselessly, checking I'm not being followed. I'm still holding the bar, I mean, bat... No, I mean bar!

I turn around, intending to bury myself in a corner to think this through, but scream when I realize I'm not alone. Two people, one tall, one slightly shorter than me, both male. They come out of the shadows a little, and I scream louder when I see their faces. Tom and my father. "No!" I gasp again, telling myself that this can't be real, Tom's dead. But I was Cat-girl an hour ago. He was still alive when I was Cat-Girl. This is some twisted dream, that's all. For a second I freeze, the arm holding the baseball bat goes limp. Wait... baseball bat! I _am_ still at HQ, this _can't_ be real. This train of thought sets off alarm bells in the back of my head. Have I come to this conclusion before?

"Scarecrow!" I shout madly, spinning and rattling the door, pushing as hard as I can. But someone seems to have locked it from the outside.

"Ingrate..." I recognise the voice instantly. It's my father speaking. I don't turn, just keep trying the door. "I kept a roof over your head, put up with you, fed you, clothed you. Is this how you repay me?"

"You sold me to Selina!" I can feel that I'm crying now, but nothing matters except opening the door. "Was she just the highest bidder, or was there some kind of deal to get your freak daughter off your hands?"

"How dare you... After all I ever did for you..."

"You made my life hell! Physically, mentally... I used to dread going home! At least here, I'm accepted! I have friends and I have people who love me!"

"We loved you, sis," Tom says, taking over, but there's something horribly wrong with his voice... something gravely and croaking. Something that hardly sounds like him.

"If you'd love me you wouldn't have tried to repeat my mistakes!" I sob, still frantically pushing at the door. "Did you think you'd get to me by becoming Slade's apprentice? What was it? Wouldn't Catwoman take you?"

"Oh, of course I could never be as good as you. Turn around and see what you did to me!"

"No!" but I feel his hand on my shoulder, uncannily strong, spinning me around, I try to close my eyes but I can't. I knew he'd been crushed under the rubble when the Slade Complex had been decimated... Oh God... I did this. He looks as though he was inflated like a balloon, still bruised and gashed and broken... When I destroyed the complex, did I really do that to Tom? But I remember the baseball bat, the bar, and I remember what I shouted. Not real... not real... is it?

All this confusion is driving me mad. I lift the bat over my head and start swing at them, but it seems to moves straight through their forms. "You're not real! You're not real!" I can hear myself screaming over and over again. I squeeze my eyes shut and keep swinging until I lose my balance and fall backwards into the door. To my surprise, it opens and I fall back into the hall. I scuttle backwards a few paces before I manage to turn over and pull myself to my feet, sprinting off down the hall, getting and deeper and deeper into Headquarters and still not sure where I'm going.

Raven 

Both Speedy and I recognise her scream immediately and without a word we both head off in the direction it came from. On past the place where she confronted him earlier, there's a door swinging across the hall. Inside the room, it looks as though Teleka barely moved past the door, but there are signs of a struggle. The door itself is badly dented from the inside, and lamps and furniture to either side of the doorframe are in pieces.

"That's weird," Speedy says in confusion, looking up at me. "There're only two footprints in the carpet. Teleka was alone."

"What could possibly make her react like this?" I reply slowly, picking up the shards of a glass lampshade.

"And what did she do the damage with?"

"The impact required to break this furniture goes beyond her fists. Something heavy, and blunt. We're not talking axe-murderer here."

"No, because this is Telly we're talking about," he replies slowly, like I'm some kind of child. I can already see the problems arising out of this situation.

"Listen, Speedy. I know you care about Teleka, but if she has to be subdued, you can't let that get in the way. This is all for her own good."

He looks at me for a brief moment, before he turns away again. "Let's just find her first. I'm hoping it won't come to that." I could argue back at this stage. I want to. But I understand. I understand why Robin sent me with him instead of after Venom. I'll be able to keep him in check with my powers, whereas if I had gone with Cyborg or Terra, it would have been more difficult. _I_ would've needed to be subdued, and they're both my teammates. So I don't argue. I just follow him silently down the hall, tracing Teleka's claw marks.

Blue Moon 

When I feel I'm far enough away from the spiders to stop, I manage to collapse against the wall and start tearing at the crawling, itchy sensation in my skin. Teleka's always shouting at me for biting my nails. I'm glad I don't listen to her now. These ragged edges get rid of that terrible feeling faster, drawing warm, soothing blood from underneath the skin. "Spiders..." I mutter, but just saying the word refreshes the tingling and I scratch the backs of my legs again. But with more blood, pain also sinks in, sheer white-hot pain.

I wince slightly and lean my head back against the wall. I can feel a slight tremor, as though someone's coming down the corridor towards me. For a second I could swear I hear my name being called, but then there's a loud roar, and a long, inhuman shadow on the wall. Ignoring the pain, I get up and run again, knowing I'm leaving droplets of blood behind me, not really caring. There's a door lying open just ahead, and I skid around the doorframe and inside. Our weapons room. I always said this should be moved to Telly's third. They're all hers anyway, but she _insists_ she needs the room for her workshop. Oh God, I'm gabbling, and this place is a godsend... If there is something out there, it couldn't do any harm to nick her staff. Just this once. She'll forgive me... after about a month of grovelling.

That's all I lift, because it's the only one I know how to use. If I took a katana I'd end up decapitating myself. But that's still not the point. I have a knack for drivelling on and on when I'm in Barney like this. I open the door again, take one step out, and immediately run back into the room and close the door. Quicksand... The swamp again, right outside the room. Oh God, that was the hall a minute ago... Sure-fire signs you're going nuts, by me: first off, I'm talking to myself. Secondly, I exit a room and find myself in a presumably spider infested swamp, I know I'm dreaming.

I'm sure I'll come up with more of those before the day's out...

Something's knocking against the door with clicking and gurgling noises... The Spider! The big one! Well that's settled, I'm not opening that. Blue Moon knows when she's done for! I run and hide between a rack of swords, the ones Telly keeps for show, and the case of weapons Venom inherited, but rarely uses. Maybe if I curl up tight enough, and ignore it, it'll go away.

"Yeah, sure Blue. It's never worked in a horror movie yet, what makes you think it's going to work now!" I yell out loud to myself. Almost the moment I close my mouth, the door is bashed in, and two of the long legs start feeling around the room. The clicking and screeching of the spider are still too loud. I can't hear the footsteps... I mean, the legs poking around the room. But I can see the shadow of one, long and spindly, like bare bones. The other one, coming in the other direction, trying to corner me. "No!" I yell back, louder than the creature's cry, able to hear my own voice this time. Without knowing what I'm doing, I shove the rack of swords over into the aisle and bolt out, suddenly remembering what my powers are. Honestly, if start relying any more on these instincts I'll turn into Telly...

Teleka! Venom! Where the hell are they? Are they here in the swamp too? Maybe it's someone with the power to create alternate dimensions or all that crap Rae knows about. They just happened to create a place that's pretty damn terrible for an arachnaphobe like me. That's just my bloody luck, isn't it! So that'll be something to focus on. Finding the other two... Now, what way leads back to where I woke up? I'll be able to find their thirds from there.

So I start to pick my way through the swamp, and seconds later I feel it. Something on the outside of my boots, crawling... sliding down inside, crawling up my legs... I look down and they're on my veils and everything. Tiny black spiders, all over me. Billions of them. Too many... Too many...

"Nonononononononono...." I murmur, over and over and over again, frozen in the one place while they just keep coming. Then that same hissing and clicking noise behind me. Like a slightly smaller version of the monster spider, there's this eight-limbed, utterly petrifying, hairy, black... _thing_, coming towards me. And I bolt again, shedding the spiders as I go in any and every direction to get away.

Starfire   
I do not fully understand this Scarecrow creature Robin speaks of. I thought a scarecrow was a jovial rag doll the farmers of this planet place in field to prevent the crows from eating their crops, hence their name. But it seems this Scarecrow is very much alive. However, I do not believe that is the point of this exercise. Blue Moon seems terribly afraid of something that we cannot see.   
Robin, who narrowly avoided the sword that fell from the rack Blue Moon knocked over, tells me to stay behind him as he tries to approach again. I try not to giggle as I realize it must look like one person with eight limbs. But Blue Moon spins towards us and freezes. Robin stops and take aim with the dart gun, which he assured me cannot hurt her for more than an instant, but she runs away again. Although, I too would run away if I saw my friend pointing such a mean-looking device in my direction.   
"She is gone..." I sigh, disappointed. "Were we wrong to try and help one who flies so swiftly?"   
"No. We'll catch up to her. We can't let her stay under the gases for too much longer."   
"And this... Scarecrow, you are certain it is not the kind employed by farmers to scare the crows?"   
"I'm certain. It just has the same name."   
"Oh I see! Similar to you and the little bird we found at Christmas?"   
"Uh... something like that Starfire. Yeah."   
"And... Blue Moon is not the same as the figure of speech Beast Boy explained to me? She does not symbolise a rare event? They merely share the same name, correct?"   
"You're getting better at this Earth thing, Starfire." He looks up at me with a smile and I feel the heat in my face that means I am 'blushing', I believe. Raven had to explain that concept to me. I look away quickly, feeling 'embarrassed.'   
"We must find Blue Moon..." I say quickly, walking down the corridor in the last direction I saw Blue Moon run in. "I believe this was her direction. Back the way she came..."   
"Back to the source of the gas. I wonder if Beast Boy has found anything yet."   
"No such luck dude!" I jump and fire a bolt at the source of the voice in surprise, before I realize it's only Beast Boy, hanging from a vent in the ceiling.   
"Oh Beast Boy, you are unharmed? I am sorry!" He looks a little dazed and singed, but he is quickly well again.   
"Star! Jumpy much! I just thought I'd drop in and tell you I haven't found anything yet, since you were wondering. But you should hear some of the screams... They really carry! Do you know how complex ventilation systems are? But it stinks. I'm telling you, dude, I always pull the short straw! It's unfair! I mean how am I supposed to-?" Robin reaches up and closes the cover on the vent and begins to the walk down the hallway. "Dude! That's cold!"   
Venom   
Just keep walking... Just keep walking... Don't think about it... Don't look back... There's nothing to see... They were never there... They're not there now. In fact, they're probably looking for me, wondering where I am. At least if I bump into them I know they're not dead. And that I didn't... Oh God, I'm gonna be sick! No! Don't think about it. It wasn't real...   
That's all that runs through my head. The same train of thought going round and round. I'll drive myself insane if I'm not careful. For all I know I'm already insane... No, there has to be a reasonable explanation. There is always a reasonable explanation. I need to think this through, and then the answer will be obvious, just like always. I'm the calm one. Teleka's the impulsive one. Blue's the mad one. But I'm the calm one. I'm supposed to be calm, and levelheaded and laid-back and always be able to explain it. If I meet one of the girls, I'm going to have a nice, sensible explanation before Telly kills something and Blue goes insane. And I'll calm them down, without going on and on like this.   
The door of my room's open, sunlight from inside spilling into the hall. It looks kind of inviting so I decide that might be a good place to stop instead of taking a chance and going back to the living room. I step inside and collapse on the window seat in the warm sunlight, starting to feel a little better as I organize the facts and try to sort this out.   
"How could you?" A cold voice comes softly out of the shadows on the other side of the room. I can't see who it is, but the voice sounds familiar. Dangerous, but familiar...   
"Who's there?" I manage warily, afraid in case the same thing should happen as before, ending with me, as before, terrified. 

"Oh, check it out, he's going for the insanity plea now, Tel."

"Blue? Teleka? Is that you? Are you okay?" I ask. At least they're speaking normally now, not screaming like earlier. Something shuffles in the darkness, and a pair of green eyes, shining with tears come into the light as Teleka looks up.

"We are. But you asked the wrong girls," she rasps, glaring at me like an enemy. Before, her eyes were glazed and glassy, as though she were looking through me, or at something inside her eyes as she so often did. Now though, they were fiery, burning into me, already making me feel guilty when I wasn't sure what I'd done.

"What is it? What happened?"

"Don't pull that crap, mate. You know full well what happened," Blue chimes in, still in the darkness. "You did."

Teleka growls like a feral animal and bounds over the bed. "Why? Why hurt her? Why do this? She'll never get over this. Never! And neither will you, if I have anything to do with it! I hope it haunts you. And when you sleep, I hope you wake screaming about it, and when you die, I hope you go to hell for it! But above all, I hope you die in pain! And I hope I'm the one to do it!" she shouts, pinning me back against the window with a katana poised and ready to cut my throat.

"What have I done?!" I shout back, trying to push her off.

"Better get off Telly. You'll probably be next!" I hear Blue Moon shout, just as dangerous and angry. I'm afraid now. No, scratch that. I'm petrified. I try to look Teleka in the eye, force her to tell me, but it burns like a physical pain. I look away from her.

"No. Don't do that. Don't turn. Don't look the other way. Come and see your work," Teleka growls, softer now, but even more lethal. She swings the sword, just missing my throat but cutting away the curtain, allowing more light into the room, illuminating Blue Moon and someone else, lying limp against her. And suddenly I don't want to take another step in that direction. In fact, the third floor window feels like a better option, but Teleka's having none of it. She hangs on to the window frame, dangling above me with those burning eyes. I see her let go and jump out of the way as she falls. "Show him, Blue. If she's up to it." She stays behind me, crouched like a huntress, herding me to that patch of light, where Blue Moon moves slightly to give me a better view. Raven. She's quivering, paler than ever, clinging to Blue like a scared child.

"No, please Blue. Don't let him..." she murmurs, clutching tighter at the veils. I've never heard that voice. Timid and scared, five octaves above her normal tone. What have I done...?

"It's okay, Rae. He's not going to touch you, love. It's okay. We just want to let him see what he's done," Blue Moon replies softly, stroking her hair like a worried mother. "Just close your eyes, mate. You don't even have to look at him. Just turn over..."

Slowly... weakly, Raven rolls over with Blue's help, and I can feel even Teleka soften where she still stands behind me, tears dousing the fire in her eyes. I can barely force myself to look, but Teleka, ever helpful, keeps my eyes open with her powers. Three deep gashes, stitched and bandaged, lie across Raven's throat. More across her stomach... Her cloak lies in a pile in the corner, and her sleeves are ripped, even her legs are bruised and bandaged have deep gouges in them. I can see tears seep from between her eyelids, down her bruised, red cheeks. "Enough, Blue, enough..." she whispers again, turning back to her for comfort, reaching out to grab on to the front of her robes and finding herself in a tight warm hug.

"No... n-no... I couldn't have, that wasn't me, and I can't believe it. It's not real, like the bodies in the living room, they weren't real, and this isn't real. It's not! I know it's not!"

"Believe it." Teleka says, whispering from right beside my ear. "Corridor. Now. I don't want her to hear this. She's been through enough." I follow her out the doorway, unable to look back to where Raven is now sobbing against Blue, who's glare I can feel on my back as I walk out.

Teleka's waiting behind the door, slamming it with the end of her sword as soon as I enter the hallway. She jumps down from the table she's balanced on, pinning me to the ground, forcing me to meet her eyes and the tip of the katana. All she has to do now is force it down, and I'm dead.

"Teleka, I'm serious, I don't remember doing anything."

"She remembers what you did," she whispers, somehow scarier now than when she was screaming at me.

"What _did _I do, Teleka? Please! Just tell me..." I beg. A hard scowl twists her face and she drops the sword to the ground with a clatter and leans over, growling in my ear.

"Those wounds... You made them... Can't you remember why?"

"No! Just tell me!"

"Because she wouldn't let you rape her..." she says slowly... softy... in utter calm, drawing back to fix me with that glare again.

"No." It's more of a statement than an exclamation this time. I know I wouldn't do that. But Teleka simply nods, satisfied that her work is done.

"Believe it," she tells me again, her voice still the snarl, the deep rumble in her throat like a panther, but now she sounds more sad than angry. She lifts her sword and walks back into the room, leaving me lying there.

"No," I say again, hiding my face in my hands. I'd never do that to Raven... But what if I did? Why would they lie about something like that? Could it have been me? If I could go insane enough to see Teleka and Blue as screaming corpses in the living room, could I be insane enough to r-... God, I can't even say it... No! I can't, I didn't! I know I didn't!

Suddenly the whole world twists into a thick mist, sliding sideways, forcing me to open my eyes to shake off the dizziness. But the door of my room is open, the same shaft of light that invited me in falling over my face. There are no sobs inside the room. The drapes aren't slashed and there's noone in the shadows... It's official. I'm crazy. There is _no_ reasonable explanation. For the first time in my life, I can't explain it all away, blind the situation with logic, or ignore it.

Terra 

Cyborg and I don't have much to go on, except the odd spot of poison on the ground. I haven't known Venom as long as the others. He's quiet, and mysterious, but he's always calm. It's only when he's angry, or fighting, that the toxin would escape him. He must be in a hell of a state. Cyborg's passed on everything he knows about the Scarecrow, an ex-psychiatrist turned sociopath named Jonathan Crane who used his knowledge of the human psyche and a kind of 'fear gas' to make the victims worst fears seem real. We've been discussing that as we follow the trail. Teleka's will be her history and Blue Moon suffers arachnophobia, but Venom has never revealed anything that might constitute fear. He's the calm one when everyone else is afraid. That seems to be his position on the team...

"No." A tiny cry further down the hall, grabs our attention. Cyborg and I share a glance before running off in that direction. Venom, standing from the floor, walks into his room, looking ahead as though checking for something. He walks to the window and pulls at the curtain to one side of the window, running his hand over the surface across the top. It almost looks like he's checking for a seam or a tear, before he jumps down from the window seat and walks to the side of the bed that's in shadow, reaching into the darkness as though he expects to hit something, but there's nothing. "Thank God..." he whispers. "I'd rather be insane than have really done that..."

Cyborg has his dart gun locked on him, but Venom looks up and spots us. "Cy, Terra! Where's Raven? Is she okay?"

"Uh... last time I checked..." I reply, slightly confused by his question. Cy fires the shot to put him asleep. Venom looks at the dart in his shoulder for a second and pulls it out.

"Y-you... You're part of it! You're not real! You're in my head... Why shoot me? No!" he says, all in one breath, his eyes widening. He pushes past and takes off down the corridor and downstairs. I turn to Cy, not sure what to think. He only shrugs, just as puzzled as I am.

"Why isn't he asleep, Cy?" I ask simply.

"Best I can figure is that he's immune to toxins. As his blood's full of it, it kind of makes sense that his body would be used to it." He shrugs and I nod in reply.

"Uh-huh. And plan B is?"

"Uh..."

"_Is _there a plan B?"

"Uh... no."

"Oh... okay then... We need one."

"Yeah, I kinda figured... I think we should try and knock him out the old-fashioned way," he says after a minute, the end of his cannon arm folding out.

"Wasn't the whole point of this _not_ to hurt the Triquetra? In case they hurt us, because the Scarecrow has driven them mad. You do remember that, don't you?"

"You have a better plan B?" he asks sheepishly. I walk into the room to our left and lift a guitar from just inside the door. It's strange I never knew Venom played. But I can only hope he forgive me if something happens to this. So I hold it up like and offensive weapon and walk back to Cy.

"And on with plan B!"


	3. Scared Yet?

3

Beast Boy 

Talk about the short straw... Everyone else gets to hunt down friends. Me, I get to crawl around through this stinking gas, looking for the source. What am I supposed to do when I find it anyway? Turn on an extractor fan and pray it gets all of it? Like that'll ever work. Why couldn't I go get Venom with Terra? Oh yeah, I remember! Because I'm the smallest. I fit. I can morph into a snake to squeeze through the gaps, so everyone else gets cool dart guns, and I get to slide through boring air vents. They all look the same. I could be going round in circles for all I know.

Sometimes I pass a vent looking into a room, but so far all I've seen is the gym and a couple of guest rooms. Hold up! What's that? Judging from the mess, and the colours... Blue's Room. I can't help but laugh for a second and I pause. I think I deserve a sneaky peek. I've been up here for at least an hour and a half now. So with just a thought, there's a tiny green spider crawling down the wall. And a thought later, I'm standing in the room.

"Teleka's going to love this..." I smile with a laugh, poking around a little. Blue does a lot of sticking her nose into other people's business. So someone should poke around in hers, right?

So what can we find? Maybe a diary or a scrapbook? I walk over to inspect some of the posters on the wall, mostly for the kind of boy bands Venom loves to make fun of when Blue's not listening. My foot catches on something, just a wrinkle in the rug, I guess, but there's a grinding noise as well. I flip back the carpet, looking at the floorboards. One looks a little loose and it shifts easily. The kind of place she might keep something personal? I'm starting to feel a little bad about this, but well, I'm here now. I've found the place. I'd be a crime _not_ to look... I wonder is that how Slade thinks... That's beside the point, but by the time I'm done thinking the floorboard's out and my hands are in. Let's see now, address book, no numbers I recognize... picture of her parents, I wonder who that guy behind them is... notebook full of gibberish... God, these girls have no taste for secrets! I wonder does _Telly's_ room have a vent. Now _she's_ got secrets... Or Venom! He tells nobody anything! I could learn things...

Wait, what was I supposed to be doing? Oh yeah! Vents! Ducts! Extractor Fan! Okay!

_Robin_

Whatever happened to Blue Moon, she's still trailing blood. I've heard of Scarecrow's victims hurting themselves, but never so quickly as this. She could have caught her leg on something in the weapons room.

Mental note: Buy Teleka sheathes for her birthday. Blue could've sliced me up nicely.

I've tried helping Starfire grasp the concept of self-harm and why it's so dangerous, but she can't seem to understand why anyone would want to. I don't think that should be an issue for a while yet. I've never heard of victims committing suicide until at least 3 days of total immersion in the fear gases, which is why it's so important that Beast Boy gets a move on. It's as important to clear the air as it is to knock the Triquetra out and set them up with the breathers. I just hope he can focus on that...

"Robin? You are certain Blue Moon is in no danger from these visions?"

"Yeah Star. None of them can actually hurt her. But she can't see that."

"Then... why does she bleed again?"

"She could have been hurt in any number of ways. I don't think there's anything to worry about." There's a slight change in the pattern of the drops around the corner. "She slowed down here and started walking. Maybe we can catch her up." Around the corner, there's no sign of Blue Moon, but there is a door lying open, swinging slightly. I motion for Starfire to follow and walk forward silently towards the room, aiming the dart gun. We step inside, but there's noone there. The door slams behind us and something is jammed underneath it. "It was a trap!"

"But who would do such a thing?" The only answer Starfire gets is a high-pitched, mad cackle outside the room.

"Nasty children in my business! Trying to spoil my fun. Now your all trapped! Trapped trapped trapped!" comes the voice.

"The Scarecrow," I tell her quietly, listening as the cackle gets farther and farther away down the corridor. What can we possibly do for Blue Moon from in here? Something metal catches the light in the top corner of the room. The ventilation opening. What was it Beast Boy said about the screams carrying? "Beast Boy!" I shout. "Blue Moon's third, halfway down the hall leading on to the common room. Unblock the door!"

Thirty seconds later, the door flies open, scaring Starfire to hide behind my cape.

"You yelled?" BB says exuberantly, holding up the two staffs that had been braced between the door and the wall, effectively locking it shut. "I saw Blue on the way, she's gone nuts dude! That's all I can say."

"That's what the Scarecrow wants. She probably thinks so too..." I say slowly. "Go back to the vents. Try the area leading up to the roof."

"Sir, yes, sir!" I can hear the obvious sarcasm on his voice, but choose to ignore it. It's normally a wise decision with Beast Boy.

"Oh... This is a terrible, terrible situation. We cannot allow our friend to become insane. This cannot happen!" Starfire frets.

"We won't. Don't worry Star."

Speedy 

More screams. They're the only thing leading us to her. The claw marks have ceased completely. All I can say is I hope she's still not thinking about earlier. She was out of her mind, I try to reason. She'd have let me know if I'd ever done anything to hurt her. She'd have hurt me back. It's easy to know where you stand with Teleka.

Raven hasn't said much, but I know she's thinking about Venom. She's worried, but not letting it show. Does she ever? I know exactly how she's feeling. She doesn't care about catching the Scarecrow. She just wants to know he's okay.

Teleka doesn't seem to be slowing down. Maybe she knows we're chasing her. Maybe she doesn't see us. The fear could be making her see something different. But suddenly, the shouting stops and footsteps can only just be heard, and the scraping noise of metal on metal. Raven looks at me with concern. Teleka's an expert with several weapons. Any of them could do us some serious harm. The footsteps start again, coming back towards us from the direction of Telly's room.

Her shadow moves up the wall slowly, the only clue that she's coming. She's not making a sound now, which I have to admit I find scary. She grew up around cats. Earlier on, it looked like she was hunting like one. What if it's the same thing? The shadow blurs and disappears too quickly to follow, forcing us to turn the corner to investigate. A feral shout tears the air in two, incoherent. Something hits the ground noiselessly behind us, barely causing a tremor. Raven spins and tries to hold the figure with her powers, but it moves too fast.

"Do you know what you did to me? To my mind?" The voice is more of a deep, rumbling growl I've heard before.

"Teleka, it's us," I say quietly, trying to comfort her as she bounds around.

"I know who it is. Three years of one, one year of the other. Four years of hell!" she screeches, coming out of the shade, allowing the sunlight to glint off the deadly blade of a glaive.

"You've figured out what she's seeing?" Raven asks quietly.

"Yeah. Actually, I'm kind of offended."   
"Don't be. It's not her fault."   
"Yeah, but still... I bear no resemblance whatsoever to-" "Look out!"   
I jump instinctively, just in time to miss the blade slashing beneath my feet. "This is going to feel so good," Teleka growls, swinging again.   
"Yeah, until you snap out of it! Then it's not going to feel good."   
"Care to put money on that?" she continues, before she softens again. Her eyes slide in and out of focus, and she stops looking through me for a second, dropping the glaive. "S-speedy? Rae? It's... It's the Scarecrow! He's doing this to me! It's not me! I – I'm sorry!" she cries frantically. I hand her my breather so she might take a few breaths of fresh air and hold her tight, feeling her body shake as she starts to sob.   
"We know. We know about the Scarecrow... You told me before, remember? This morning... Just breathe, you'll be okay, it'll all be okay, Tel." I see Raven turn her hood up and turn away. Is she thinking about Venom? Could she be doing the same for him? 

"Th- This morning? You were here? You were here! I remember! Oh my Gotham... I'm so sorry, I didn't mean any of it!" She kicks her weapon as far away as she can, letting go of me for a minute as she does so. Something reaches down from the ceiling, a long gangly arm, and wraps around her neck to lift her from the floor. She chokes, losing the breather as she does so, and inhales the dense gas that hangs around the ceiling. She claws at the arm, beginning to go red. I see Raven charging up a blast of telekinesis, but I'm afraid she'll hit Telly as well. I load up an arrow and fire at the limb, singeing it. There's a high-pitched scream, and Teleka drops to all fours on the floor, gasping in the gas and searching frantically for the breather. "Can't... lose... it... again," she gasps, trying to hold her breath. The owner of the arm drops from the vent in the ceiling.

"Nasty stinger! This is _my_ party! Gatecrasher!" The Scarecrow. As mad as any of his prey have ever become. But he still hasn't spotted Raven who lands her charge in his back, throwing him forward. "Bad! Nasty!" he shouts before pulling himself back to the ceiling and swinging upside-down for a second before he disappears into the labyrinth of ducts again. For a second, I think about following him, and then I realize... Teleka's gone and so is her glaive. My breather's still lying where it fell.

"Damn it..." Rae and I mutter in unison.

Cyborg 

"I still can't believe this is plan B..." Terra murmurs, starting to strum quietly on the guitar as we walk.

"Why don't you just wear a cow-bell? Tell Venom we're coming why don't you."

"Sorry... You're sure there are no better plan B's?"

"Well if you think of any, just let me know Terra. I feel bad about this too, but the idea is, just knock him over the head and get him outside in fresh air, okay?" I say. She's starting to annoy me a little now. Can she keep her mouth shut for more than a minute?

"I bet Raven wishes she was sent after Venom."

Obviously not.

"Well she wasn't, so can you shut up so _we _can get on with tracking him down?"

"Oh... okay, then... Sorry." I hope I haven't offended her. Who am I kidding? I hope I did. Might keep her quiet for a while. "I mean, I didn't realize, I was prattling on like that..." Good god, she must have some psychological problem with silence. No wonder she gets on so well with Blue Moon and Starfire...

"I didn't hurt her. I know I didn't. It's not me..." The muttering coming from the room at the end of the hallway is definitely Venom. Terra raises her guitar warily. I scan the brightly lit chamber the voice is coming from. "I would never hurt any of them. Not Telly, not Blue... not Raven... definitely not Raven. I would never do that..." The Triquetra's gym, it seems. At first glance, I can't see Venom, but my heat sensor picks him up in the far corner.

I nod to Terra and point in his direction. She nods back and begins to tiptoe across the wood floor, brandishing her makeshift weapon. As far as can tell, this is the only safe exit, so I stay here to block it. She seems to be doing a good job of silence now as she creeps across the room, but something shifts in the corner, over Venom's head. A rope moving down. Terra's too preoccupied with stealth to notice, but it seems to be attached to something on the ceiling... Those monkey bars maybe. Then I realize how high the ceiling is. Blue and Teleka could get to those, but what about Venom? And why are there two layers?

Then it hits me, as the lower layer loosens and starts an arc towards the ground. One set's the ladder, and the other is the bars. "Terra! Behind you!" I warn her. The ladder's about to knock her over. Quick spectrographic analysis shows the metal as a light titanium alloy. It wouldn't do much damage, but it would be enough of a distraction for Venom to get away. She dives flat to the floor in the nick of time, the feet of the ladder catching her hair as they swing past. Venom makes a run for it, but I manage to reach out and clothesline him. "You're not going anywhere. It's for your own good, man!"

I pick him up, ready to let Terra knock him out, but he twists in my grasps, hissing. I've never seen anything like this before. Green scales begin to burst out of his skin, and his face seems to... _melt_ for lack of a better word, becoming flat and triangular, like a snake's head. "Ah! Creepy!" I say, letting go just as Terra swings. Venom runs past me, as a guitar breaks over the metal side of my head. "Nicely done."

"Me? You were the one who let go!"

"He was turning into a snake thing. What do you want me to do?"

"Um... Hold on?"

"Don't get smart _now_. After missing the goddamn ladder swinging for your head, that would be hypocrisy."

"Don't use big words if you don't want me to get smart! What the hell is hypocrisy?"

"Saying one thing and doing the opposite, Terra!"

"Ok, then! Let's go after Ven!"

"Ok then!"

Scarecrow 

Hehehe! Nasty children won't get out. Scarecrow's fun's not over yet. Scarecrow having too much fun to let silly children spoil it. Scarecrow finds Green Boy and Scarecrow stops him taking all Scarecrow's lovely gas out, so the fun can keep going. That's why Scarecrow's up in the metal tubes. It's fun, but Scarecrow has to find Green Boy. Scarecrow mustn't laugh. Can't let him know I'm up here. But Scarecrow can't help it. Scarecrow hears screams. Screams are fun. Scarecrow is going to keep the three nasty kids here and listen to them scream. Scarecrow wants his fun to keep going, so Scarecrow not let them get out. But Scarecrow doesn't want the other ones. Scarecrow gets rid of them. Starting with Green Boy...

Beast Boy 

There's someone else up here. Snakes can sense the tremors from miles away. Someone trying to be quiet, but they seem to be struggling not to laugh. Maybe it's one of the Triquetra. Blue Moon gone mad. But from what I can feel, it's someone bigger, skinny for his or her size. The Scarecrow. Robin was right; this _is_ how he got the gas in.

He doesn't have an animal's senses like me, but he's heading the right direction. If I slide out, I should be able to avoid him and get closer to the roof at the same time. There's a vent just ahead, so I drop into the room below and take a second to get my bearings. Another bedroom, by the looks of things. The walls are black with red tribal patterns all over the place. The carpet is deep blood red, and the perfectly made bed has black and red silk covers in the same patterns as the walls. Telly's room.

There's a strange feeling here, like I'm being watched, but I know there's noone nearby, I would sense them. Bookshelves to the left of the bed, nothing interesting, just about a gazillion full sketchbooks and a few old coffee cups. The computer near the door is password protected. Probably a good thing, I'm getting as bad as Blue Moon.

A sharp cackle carries into the room from the ducts above. Scarecrow passing. One side of the room is portioned off by a curtain, so I run over to the corner in case he spots me. He passes right by, singing some little kid's song. And Cy says _I'm _crazy?

Of course, I had to ignore the signs directed at Blue when I dashed through the silk curtain, but I think most of them were pretty stiff warnings. I try to stand up, but crack my skull off something above me. When I move forward and stand I can see why even Blue doesn't brush off those signs. This rivals Raven's room in the creepy department. It was a display case I bumped my head on, one stretching across the entire wall, divided into boxes by red material. Katanas, sai and other weapons make up most of the items inside. Jewels and ancient-looking prizes take the rest of the space. Teleka's no millionaire. These must be from her days as Cat-Girl. I reach the end of the case, and come across three mannequins covered in a dustsheet. I can already tell what they are, but I've come this far. I'm not going to tell anyone anyway...

I was right, three uniforms. Cat-Girl, Slade's apprentice and Nocturne. Why would she want to keep those? I suddenly feel I shouldn't be here and walk out of the room. There are stairs in both directions at the end of the corridor, so I head towards the roof to find that extractor fan, suddenly Venom's room doesn't seem so important. It can wait. I don't like seeing something I know noone's supposed to see.

"Why?" Somebody drops onto the landing in front of me at the top of the stairs. "What did you see? Why were you in my room? Never mind, I'll read your thoughts." Teleka, carrying a long staff with a blade at each end and coming towards me.

"Teleka? What's wrong?"

"Don't tell anyone. Never tell anyone. This is the only warning you'll get. I don't like being betrayed, okay? If you _ever_ tell anyone what you saw behind the curtain, I _will_ kill you..."

"Hey, no problem Telly. That's fine! I wasn't gonna tell anyone anyway! Really!" I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention. If the Scarecrow's intention was to terrify me, mission accomplished. I knew she was scary in the past, but this is beyond. I should have one of those cool dart guns. I try to think of an animal with knockout gas, but somehow they escape me at the minute. _Are_ there any?

"You're lying! I don't like being lied to! Maybe I should make sure you don't, should I?"

"No, no, no! That's fine. I won't tell, I swear."

"Why should I believe you? Why should believe anything any more? This place! It isn't real! You're probably not even here!" She screams, swinging for me with her weapon. I'm not the only beast in HQ any more. She's nuts.

"You're right, I'm not here. You're wasting your time. You should just go on ahead and find Speedy and Raven... Or anyone else, in fact... The real me is up in the air vents. I'm a dreeeeeam..." I tell her, wiggling my fingers a little. She raises one eyebrow, leaps over me, and heads downstairs. "It worked? It worked! I don't believe it, it worked!" I glance around to check there's noone coming before I break into a quick victory dance.

"Go Beast Boy, You tricked her. Go Beast Boy, you're cool. Oh yeah, I'm funky!"

"Beast Boy?" I recognise that voice...

"Raven! I, uh... didn't see you there..." She's just come out onto the landing below me, from the hall where Teleka's room is.

"Evidently. We don't really have time for you to dance in the hallways. Have you seen Teleka?" Man, she can be so cold sometimes. All business. And then Venom shows up and she's all, ' Ooh, he says as little as I do, we're made for each other'. I'm standing thinking about this when I remember she's standing below me and see the impatient look on her face.

"Oh... Right, yeah. She just went downstairs. Jumped right over my head and landed a couple of floors down."

"Ok, then. Speedy, get out of her room. She's downstairs." Just like that, she's hovering off down the stairs. No 'Thank you Beast Boy, that was helpful,' just, 'Ok then'. I really don't get her. But that's not the point. I finish off the last couple of steps of my victory dance and take off upstairs again. I'm gonna save the day! And then _someone_'ll have to thank me.

(a/n Now doesn't that deserve a review, my honeys? Please? I'm really desperate. My boyfriend just ran over a badger who stole my cookies, so I'm really depressed and need cheering up.)

(No badgers were harmed in the writing of this chapter.)


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